British Hägglunds BV206 All Terrain Tracked Vehicles participate in a military exercise in Norway, February 28, 2010 (Defence Images/Mez Merrill)

NATO may take a different form as “the Great Melt” heats up. After the expected pullout from Afghanistan in 2014, pressure will mount on the alliance to turn north. “The Arctic represents the emergence of a new geopolitical arena.”

As a result of climate change, many states in the Northern Hemisphere could soon pivot to the pole. “As global demand for resources grows, the Arctic region becomes a new field for international competition as new sea lanes open due to ice melting,” says Lorenzo Nannetti in a month long analysis of NATO’s future for the geostrategic consultancy Wikistrat.

The Arctic is estimated to contain some 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and so much as 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas. Combined, these figures amount to 22 percent of the planet’s untapped but technically recoverable hydrocarbons.

Graham O’Brien, who worked with Nannetti on Wikistrat’s analysis, believes that the effect of resources being found in the Arctic is sure to prompt nearby countries to bolster their military and technological capabilities—and to forge alliances.

“NATO has conducted war games in the Arctic in recent years in possible preparation for a future security regime to happen in the region,” he says. March sixteen thousand soldiers from fifteen countries participating in Norway’s Cold Response exercise.

This saber rattling is causing consternation in another cold place, according to O’Brien. “Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has said in several interviews that he believes NATO has no place in the Arctic, whether it be for political or security reasons.”

Russia accounts for the bulk of Arctic land and has made its designs abundantly clear in recent years. In good Cold War fashion, it has resumed patrolling the area with bomber planes and warships while Moscow invested more than a billion dollars in the expansion of the port of Murmansk which is supposed to double its capacity by 2015.

“As Russia appears the most active in defining—and expanding—its area of influence, NATO nations will join forces to ensure they present a united front to discourage any escalation,” says Nannetti who is also an analyst and researcher for the Italian oil and gas company Eni.

That has yet to happen. While Canada’s prime minister Stephen Harper insists that “the north has never been more important” to his country and Norway even reached out to Russia in March to improve military relations and expand cooperation in the Arctic, the Americans are notably missing in action

Canada boast one of the few year round sites of human habitation close to the North Pole at Alert, a military base at the tip of Ellesmere Island, east of Greenland. Such permanently occupied sites matter if nations are to assert their sovereignty over Arctic territory.

Norway aims to convert one of its High North battalions into a dedicated Arctic brigade comprising naval and special forces units. Russia last year announced plans to create an armored Arctic brigade of its own on the Kola Peninsula. But the United States Coast Guard fields just three icebreakers, two of which are antiquated and slated to be retired. If NATO is to look toward a cold future, Washington will have to step up its game.

Despite the military buildup, Graham O’Brien cautions that “a military confrontation between Russia and NATO is way off in this era. However a freezing of relations, seen in other contexts with NATO and Russia in the past, will disable any chances of a fully sustainable system of security in the Arctic.”

British prime minister David Cameron, American president Barack Obama and European Commission president José Manuel Barroso observe a moment of silence in honor of NATO military personnel that have lost their lives, Lisbon, Portugal, November 19, 2010 (White House/Pete Souza)

The key for the future of NATO is to once again establish a clear strategic rationale for its existence.

This was a relatively easy task during the Cold War, when the threat of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact was very real and perceived as existential. In the years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, this is no longer the case and it has forced NATO to evaluate exactly what role it should play in the twenty-first century.

While it seems that many in Europe and the United States have a desire to turn NATO into some sort of “GloboCop” looking perennially abroad for new monsters to slay, NATO’s actions since the conclusion of the Cold War raise serious questions about the wisdom of such a course. Its use of military force against Serbia during the Kosovo crisis in the 1990s, its extensive work in Afghanistan and, most recently, in Libya illustrate how NATO can work and how it really cannot.

The key question is this: Should NATO in this century be used primarily to defend Europe from external aggression while facilitating intra-European stability or is it to be a platform for external stabilizing missions in other geographic regions, such as the Middle East or East Asia? 


The answer is that it should remain focused on what it can do and do well.

If NATO was largely created “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down,” as stated memorably by the alliance’s first secretary general, Lord Ismay, this should in large measure be maintained as a raison d’etre.

The questions of Russia and Germany continue to be, as they always have been, of paramount importance to European stability. NATO can and should deal with this.

The alliance should remain a serious player in Europe, capable of defending against any potential external aggression. It should also retain the ability to maintain a sense of order in the continually tumultuous southern side of Europe, especially the Balkan tinderbox. 



Meanwhile, NATO must reexamine its capacity to engage in missions outside of Europe and should probably scale back any extra-European ambitions. The fiscal and military resources are not available to engage in global operations and the scarce resources that are available are better spent in the European neighborhood.

Referring again to the Kosovo air campaign, it appears that NATO can use force effectively when deployed against malefactors within the general European area.

By contrast, although NATO has played a significant role in Afghanistan, the ambiguities of general policy toward that nation and the larger issues pertaining in particular to stability in Pakistan have made it a far less successful endeavor.

Granted, much of this is due to internal policy divisions within the United States, which is quite evidently the largest player in the Afghan theater. However, the projection capabilities of NATO are not all that impressive when looking at the difficulty in doing what is necessary to win a small scale conflict beyond Europe.

The Libyan intervention reinforces this impression. Aside from the question of whether the regime crackdown in Syria is of more strategic importance to the region than whatever Colonel Muammar Gaddafi did, the point is, if one is to engage, one must engage fully. That NATO proved only half willing to do so elongated the conflict and could have facilitated the stealing of many weapons that are now finding their way into a myriad of other conflict zones like Mali.

The take away from this state of affairs is that NATO should remain focused on European stability, not out of theater operations. Efforts to use NATO outside of Europe leave much to be desired and fundamentally risk making the Atlantic alliance look weaker, not stronger

Attempting to bolster NATO in order that it essentially becomes some kind of global constabulary force seems unwise. Each region of the world will require its own multilateral (though not panglobal) institutions.

The United States will, for as long as it remains the single most powerful nation in the world, play a key role in each of these regional institutions. Yet these institutions should remain regional, focusing on their own neighborhoods so that they can be more effective, rather than morphing into grandiose institutions with ambitions far exceeding capabilities. That is a sure fire recipe for ineffective institutions that spend more time talking than acting on the imperatives of the moment.

Europe and the United States are the pillars of transatlanticism and the “West” more broadly conceived. They must hang together or they will hang separately. Narrowing NATO’s focus in such a way that it maintains stability in the European heartland is a key step to making sure they hang together even if economic power seems to be shifting eastward in the twenty-first century.

At the end of the day, NATO leaders should say no to “GloboCop” and yes to their own backyard.

This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared at the Atlantic Community, September 3, 2010.

A Greek F-4 Phantom plane prepares to leave Aviano Air Base in northeastern Italy, March 19, 2007 (US Air Force/Bethann Caporaletti)

As if to remind the world of the geopolitical implications of a Greek exit from the eurozone, Turkey on Thursday said it had scrambled military jets earlier in the week to intercept an Israeli plane that violated northern Cypriot airspace.

Monday’s reported incursion coincides with mounting tensions on the Mediterranean island over oil and natural gas exploration plans there. Turkey previously condemned the Greek speaking south when it announced plans to drill for natural resources off Cyprus’ coasts but has since endorsed similar plans on the part of the Turkish government in the north which only Turkey recognizes.

Athens naturally supports Greek Cyprus in its energy and political disputes with Turkey and has signed mutual defense guarantees with Israel following the Israeli-Turkish rift.

Relations between Ankara and Jerusalem soured when Israeli commandos raided a Turkish vessel that was bound for Gaza in May 2010 and killed nine Turkish activists on board.

Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when the Turkish military invaded the island after a short lived Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military junta then in power in Athens.

Turkey still keeps some thirty thousand troops in the north while a buffer zones that separates the two sides is monitored by the United Nations. Greek-Turkish relations have been strained ever since Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. Maritime border disputes between the two nations in the Aegean Sea are unresolved to this very day.

Israel’s support of Greek Cypriot exploration efforts complicates the picture. As analysts from the geostrategic consultancy firm Wikistrat pointed out in February, “While Israel views Cyprus as the best and most direct way to transfer gas to Europe, Turkey will view this as a way to undermine Turkish Cypriot interests.”

If Greece is forced to leave Europe’s single currency union and possibly suffers a bankruptcy, its Cypriot allies would necessarily lean more heavily on their newfound friends in Israel. Moreover, there is a good chance that Russia will step in to take advantage of the situation.

As the Financial Times explains, the damage to Cyprus’ financial system, heavily exposed to Greek debt, would be devastating if the nation left the euro.

Cyprus last year received a cheap €2.5 billion loan from Russia in a gesture that reflected the Kremlin’s interest in protecting wealthy Russian depositors with billions parked in Cypriot banks. It may soon need more aid.

The links between Greece and Russia have historically been strong, writes Walter Russell Mead at The American Interest.

In Ottoman times, Orthodox Russia was the protector of Orthodox Christians in the great Islamic empire and frequently used its diplomatic clout to defend the rights of its coreligionists. Greece looked to Russia as a reliable ally during much of the troubled period after modern Greece gained independence from the Turks.

If Greece feels abandoned by its European partners, it may look to Moscow for shelter again. That would leave Europe without a foothold in the eastern Mediterranean.

Turkey is formally still engaged in European Union membership talks but the prospect of it joining the union any time soon is dim indeed.

Cyprus is in the euro but would likely require financial support if Greece collapsed, raising the question of whether it wants to submit to the very austerity measures that doomed Greece or seek its future elsewhere.

Israel has a clear interest in balancing against what it perceives as Turkish hostility and will be quite willing to strengthen ties with both Cyprus and Greece.

Russia could finally attain what Greek and Turkish NATO membership was supposed to deny it—unfettered access to the eastern Mediterranean Sea for its navy.

A C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft takes off at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base, Uzbekistan, March 26, 2005 (US Air Force/Master Sergeant Scott T. Sturkol)

At a time when the United States are preparing to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, American cooperation with Russia, compromised on other foreign policy issues, including the missile defense program in Eastern Europe and the situation in Syria, turns out to look like a promising deal for both sides.

American authorities have come to understand the importance of securing Russian support in order to operate the departure from Afghanistan in safety.

Another factor adding to American-Russian cooperation is the continuing souring of relations between Washington and some of its regional allies, namely Pakistan, especially after last year’s killing of more than twenty Pakistani soldiers by an errant NATO air strike.

Analysis

Despite their many differences in such parts of the world as Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Russia and the United States have embarked on a vast project aimed at facilitating the future withdrawal of American armed forces from Afghanistan across the Russian territory. This project will complement previously signed agreements allowing the transit of combat troops bound for Afghan battlefields.

Up to this day, the United States military has mainly relied upon Pakistan and a few Central Asia states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan) to transport its troops and equipment to Afghanistan. The so called Northern Distribution Network represents a collection of routes which cross these countries’ territories and link them with western parts of Russia.

With the departure of forces from Afghan soil planned for 2014, American authorities are actively negotiating “retrograde transit” agreements to allow the reverse movement, from Central Asia back to the Western Hemisphere. Despite the signing of such accords with the majority of Central Asian states, some of them are not really willing to aid Washington in this vast enterprise.

It is not only about Pakistan which decided to cut off supplies after the November 2011 incident when twenty-four of its soldiers were killed as a result of a misguided air strike.

Uzbekistan, whose president Islam Karimov became a staunch supporter of the NATO coalition in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks but soon ousted all foreign troops from the Khanabad military base in 2005, is one of these fair weather allies playing a double game.

Uzbekistan is reportedly trying to extort generous transit fees from the American Government in exchange of its full support of the withdrawal operation.

In this context, an interesting agreement is being negotiated with Russia. It is expected that Russian authorities will create a regional transport hub in the Volga River city of Ulyanovsk from where American troops and equipment would be flown into Europe and North America after having been transported by trucks or rail from Afghanistan.

In response to those Russians who think that a rapprochement with the United States on the Afghan issue is not only useless but harmful to their country’s strategic interests in the region, the Kremlin affirmed that this cooperation is based exclusively on commercial calculations and will directly benefit Russia’s state budget.

The Diplomat reports incoming Russian president Vladimir Putin’s words from a recent statement about NATO:

We understand what is happening in Afghanistan, right? We are interested in things there being under control, right? And we do not want our soldiers to fight on the Tajik-Afghan border. Well, NATO and the Western community is present there. God give them good health. Let them work.

Russia is clearly not only expecting to gain from its upcoming cooperation with the United States but also seeking to weaken ties between Washington and its Central Asian partners.

According to the Kremlin’s reasoning, if the United States need less of Kyrgyzstan or Uzbekistan, it will lose interest in cooperating with them. Time will tell if this strategy of Russian policy makers will actually succeed.

Wikistrat Bottom Lines

Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the chairman of Libya's National Transitional Council prepares to speak in Tripoli

Dozens of angry protesters surrounded the building of Libya’s National Transitional Council in Benghazi during the last week of January, the first to willingly come under the control of the post-Gaddafi interim authority. The members of the NTC, who have stepped into the governing vacuum left by the dismantling of the colonel’s regime, are increasingly under hot water with a growing segment of Libya’s population.

Some of the very rebels who volunteered to fight under the NTC’s banner during the country’s eight month civil war are now turning against the body’s leadership which is often described as inept, corrupt and at times incompetent. The days when Mustafa Abdel Jalil and his colleagues on the council were hailed as revolutionary heroes and the guardians of Libya have gone. Or, as The Washington Post rightly put it, the “honeymoon is over.”

The restoration of public security has been a significant concern for Libyans of all backgrounds and tribal affiliations since Muammar Gaddafi’s regime was officially declared dead last August. Five months later, most of the country’s security work is left to the armed brigades that swept up loyalists and drove them out of the capital of Tripoli.

Libyans are just starting to assemble a professional army and police force for the first time in four decades. While recruitment has trickled in with some twenty-five thousand Libyan men training for their new duties, militias in the cities of Tripoli, Misrata and Zintan are stuck in a civil war outlook. The chief of staff of the new Libyan army, General Youssef Mangoush, has acknowledged that integrating the dozens of militias into a coherent national military will be one of the most difficult and time consuming challenges the NTC leadership faces.

National security, however, is only one of the problems slowing down Libya’s transition from an autocracy to a responsible member of the international community.

Complaints by citizens over the body’s undemocratic practices and lack of transparency are bursting into the open with Benghazi residents especially upset over the state of their city. A draft election law that was produced and released by NTC officials has been lambasted not only for its content but for the way the document was created in the first place—without direct public participation or input from independent election experts.

There is outrage over the fact that Libyans who hold dual citizenship will not be permitted to run in the elections for the Constituent Assembly, banishing dozens of experienced and qualified Libyans who were forced into exile under Gaddafi’s rein. While women are guaranteed to sit in the legislature, they are only allowed a 10 percent share, which could limit the number of female candidates who run.

Allegations of torture are the most embarrassing for Libya’s interim government. After Gaddafi’s death last October, the beatings, lashings, electrocution and sodomy were supposed to stop or at least that was what most Libyans had hoped. Sadly, each practice continues to be used by both militias and the NTC’s young security service to break down those who were caught on the wrong side of the conflict. 

Amnesty International’s latest statement on Libya details the deaths of tortured detainees under the care of fighters connected to the new Libyan Government. But it was the action of Medecins Sans Frontieres, the group famous for its medical work in conflict zones around the world, which placed the brightest spotlight on the torture question.

Sick of the inhumane treatment being offered to Libya’s prisoners, MSF staff quit their operations in Misrata’s prison system. The aid organization has seen some awful things during its history, making its decision to throw in the towel even more damning for Libya’s national council.

Tet, despite all of these cracks underneath the Libyan surface, the NATO coalition that intervened to save the lives of tens of thousands of Libyans from Gaddafi’s crackdown are surprisingly silent at a time when the country needs the most help.

The Obama Administration has only reiterated the American position that it stands with the new Libya but we seldom hear of what type of assistance Washington is giving to Libyans on the ground.

Britain, France and the United States face a similar conundrum and that is whether waiting for the Libyan Government to ask for specific advice—which has been the Obama Administration’s policy so far—is a truly appropriate response when the most senior policy maker in the country openly frets about further instability on the horizon.

This may be overly pessimistic assessment at this point in time but it could become dangerously close to a self fulfilling prophecy if more Libyan citizens, exhausted with dictatorship, nepotism and violence, remain unsatisfied with the way their appointed leaders do business.

At a minimum, the United States and its European partners can try, to the best of their ability, to ensure that the process of democracy itself—not just casting a ballot but creating a fresh culture of accountability and results for the people—is protected. Libyans themselves must be able to see that all of the resources and aggravation that has been spent thus far will pay off in the end.  Otherwise, the only objective that Libya’s citizen soldiers and NATO achieved in the eight month bombing campaign was the collapse of a dictator—a success that is hardly sustainable when the political landscape resembles a gaping wound.

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France participates in a military remembrance ceremony in Paris, June 6, 2011

France on Friday warned that it may accelerate the withdrawal of its forces from Afghanistan after four unarmed French servicemen were shot and fifteen others wounded in a killing spree by an Afghan soldier in the northeastern Kapisa Province.

President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the immediate suspension of training and joint combat operations with Afghan forces. “The French army stands alongside its allies but we cannot accept that a single one of our soldiers be wounded or killed by our allies,” he said. “It’s unacceptable.”

NATO played down the threat. Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the organization’s secretary general, insisted that attacks by Afghan forces are rare. “Such tragic incidents are terrible and grab headlines but they are isolated,” he said before pointing out that there are some 130,000 foreign soldiers serving alongside three hundred thousand Afghans.

France’s participation in the NATO mission in Afghanistan is unpopular. Sarkozy’s two main challengers for the presidency this year, Socialist Party candidate François Hollande and Marine Le Pen of the far right and isolationist Front nationale, have each promised to bring the roughly four thousand Frenchmen who serve in Afghanistan home. Elections in France are scheduled for April and May.

The president on Friday said that he would dispatch his defense minister to Afghanistan to investigate the shooting. He added that if Afghan authorities cannot ensure the safety of French troops, “the question of an early withdrawal of the French army would arise.”

Afghanistan’s defense ministry said the attacker had been arrested and was being questioned. President Hamid Karzai is due to visit Paris next week.

French troops in Afghanistan concentrate on training local security forces which includes accompanying them on patrols. The force is set to be reduced to three thousand this year before NATO hands over security responsibility to the Afghans in 2014.

The latest deaths brought to number of French soldiers killed in Afghanistan since deployment to eighty-two.

Texas governor and Republican Party presidential hopeful Rick Perry participates in a Fox News debate in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, January 16

Texas governor Rick Perry, a Republican Party presidential candidate, said Monday night that Turkey is ruled “by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists” and he questioned whether it should remain a member of NATO.

Perry was participating in a Fox News debate of Republican Party presidential hopefuls in South Carolina which will vote this Saturday to elect an opposition candidate to run against Barack Obama in the general election in November.

The Texan observed that Turkey was moving “far away” from the country that he lived in during the 1970s when he was stationed in Turkey as a United States Air Force pilot. Turkey at the time was under an unstable secular government that was overthrown by the military in a 1980 coup. Nevertheless, it “was our ally,” said Perry. “Today, we don’t see that.”

The current conservative government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan conducts a more independent foreign policy and has sought to infuse Islamic values in a nation that is overwhelmingly religious but seen aggressive attempts at secularization under both civilian and army regimes for much of its republican history.

Erdoğan has severed ties with Israel in favor of a policy that is more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, including Hamas’ which the United States regard as a terrorist organization. He tried to negotiate a nuclear fuel exchange agreement with Tehran in 2010 over Western objections but also agreed late last year to host an early warning radar system for NATO’s European missile shield despite Iranian pressure and threats.

Recently, the government in Ankara has distanced itself from Damascus after fostering trade relations with the Ba’athist regime there in previous years. President Abdullah Gül said that he had “lost confidence” in his Syrian counterpart in August of last year and Turkey has refused to close its border with Syria for refugees seeking to escape the brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.

American-Turkish relations have been complicated by Turkey’s assertiveness. Where it used to be staunchly pro-American and considered itself Western, Erdoğan and his Islamist party have realigned their country to become a power in region again. The move has not been without suspicion—from the United States as well as opposition parties within Turkey which fear an Islamization of society.

If Turkey is to be a regional player, it cannot be perceived as an American puppet regime. Nor can it maintain cordial relations with the Jewish state if it is to present itself as an alternative to either theocracy or secular dictatorship.

Especially in the wake of the “Arab spring,” which forced authoritarian, secular and often pro-Western governments out of power, Turkey’s blend of democracy and Islamism may be a model for revolutionaries in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Syria where the majority of people are conservative and Muslim and antisemitism is rife. It is why Ankara has distanced itself from the depots it was so willing to do business with just a few short years ago in the name of “zero problems with neighbors” and embraced the new order in the Middle East—one it hopes to lead.

This could be an opportunity for the United States to exert influence through Turkey on nations that are generally anti-American except for their (military) establishments that have for decades conducted a foreign policy that lacked popular support.

Perry evidently didn’t see such an opportunity. He said he wanted to “send a powerful message to countries like Iran and Syria and Turkey that the United States is serious.”

Grouping Turkey, a NATO ally for sixty years, with overtly anti-American regimes like Iran and Syria would constitute a major shift in America’s strategy and possibly undermine its foreign policy across the Middle East if it is seen as mistaking conservative Islam for extremism.

A foreign policy advisor to Rick Perry’s campaign elaborated on the governor’s comments to an ABC News journalist after the debate, explaining that it was the Turkish Government’s association with Hamas that prompted his use of the word “terrorists.” She added that as president, Perry “would welcome the opportunity to work with Turkey on regional issues like Syria or Iraq.”

A C-130 Hercules transport aircraft lands at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, July 7, 2011 (Timm Ziegenthaler)

The new defense strategy that was unveiled by President Barack Obama last week emphasizes a strong American military presence in the Pacific at the expense of the Atlantic realm. Although the document underscores the United States’ “enduring interests” in Europe, it also suggests that the force posture there must “evolve” in recognition of a strategic shift to East Asia.

“Most European countries are now producers of security rather than consumers of it,” the new strategy says. With military budgets under pressure on both sides of the Atlantic, that’s a doubtful assertion at best.

Besides the United States, only four NATO members spend more than 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense as is required by treaty—Albania, France, Greece and the United Kingdom. America’s share of total NATO spending has only risen since the end of the Cold War, from roughly 50 percent before the Soviet Union collapsed to more than 75 percent today.

In fairness, the United States are largely to blame for the growing divergence. Whereas European countries have modestly reduced their defense outlays relative to GDP in the last twenty years, America’s military budget exploded after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, from $291 billion ten years ago to roughly $700 billion today, in order to fight the War on Terror.

As American troops have pulled out of Iraq and prepare to draw down in Afghanistan, defense spending will be subject to austerity, increasing by nearly $500 billion less than was previously planned for over the next ten years.

Army and Marine Corps will be cut and lose forces while procurement projects, possibly including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, could be subject to reductions. That, in turn, could prompt other participating nations, including Italy and the Netherlands, to reduce their own F-35 orders. In both countries, political opposition to buying the fighter plane is substantial.

An army brigade will likely be withdrawn from Europe. Defense secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday wouldn’t give further details. Rather, he seemed to suggest that nothing actually will change. “Not only are we going to continue our commitments there,” he pledged, “but we are going to maintain the kind of innovative presence there that we think will make clear to Europe, and those to those who have been our strong allies in the past, that we remain committed.”

His predecessor, Robert Gates, was more critical. In the wake of the Libyan intervention, he warned European allies that, “The kind of emotional and historical attachment” to NATO that survived the end of the Cold War “is aging out.”

Gates said last year that future American leaders, “those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me—may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.”

As long as the United States far outspend European nations in defense and maintain an extended and permanent military presence on the continent, there is little incentive for NATO partners there to enhance their own defenses. There may be a “dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress,” as Gates put it, to continue to make up for Europe’s lack of an independent defense capacity; if Panetta believes that he has to “make clear” to Europe that he is “committed” to its security nonetheless, there won’t be any change.

Four US Navy F/A-18 Hornet aircraft fly over mountains in Afghanistan, November 25, 2010 (US Air Force)

Three weeks ago, twenty-four Pakistani soldiers dug in trenches along the Afghan-Pakistani border were accidentally killed by NATO aircraft during one of the many counterinsurgency missions that American and Afghan troops have undertaken over the past year. Except on this particular nighttime raid, the precision and professionalism that have become hallmarks of the coalition’s military campaign in Afghanistan were lost, tragically ending the lives of over two dozen men.

The Pakistani military and government, which have had a frosty relationship with the United States for most of the year, responded angrily. The Pakistani Embassy in Washington went so far as to tell reporters that the NATO operation was a deliberate act aimed at loosening the morale of the Muslim nation—a viewpoint that, while conspiratorial, may be acceptable given Islamabad’s roller coasty partnership with the Americans.

Sensing that another fallout in American-Pakistan relations would hurt the NATO war effort in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense called their Pakistani counterparts and told them that a transparent and factually based investigation would be implemented. That Pentagon study is now out and to the consternation of Western military officials, it looks like the Pakistanis may not have been wrong in all of their assertions.

Although the final report has not been made public, the Defense Department released a press statement briefly touching upon its most important findings. In sum, the investigation concluded that NATO was perfectly within its right to return fire in self defense but the coordinates that were given to Pakistani soldiers in the area turned out to be wrong.

The investigating officer found that US forces, given what information they had available to them at the time, acted in self defense and with appropriate force after being fired upon. Nevertheless, inadequate coordination by US and Pakistani military officers operating through the border coordination center—including our reliance on incorrect mapping information shared with the Pakistani liaison officer—resulted in a misunderstanding about the true location of Pakistani military units.

The study is not a perfect inquiry. Out of protest, the Pakistani military refused to cooperate with the Pentagon’s investigation, which lead investigator Brigadier General Stephen Clark acknowledged was a significant setback in uncovering all of the facts.

The findings are certain to draw condemnation from the Pakistanis who continue to feel insulted by what they view as Washington’s lack of appreciation for the thousands of military and civilian casualties that they have suffered in the fight against terrorism since 2001. General Athar Abbas, the chief Pakistani military spokesman, quickly indicated that his colleagues rejected the report’s conclusions.

The completion of the inquiry leaves the Obama Administration with a difficult decision to make. Does the president “swallow American pride” and formally apologize for NATO’s part of the responsibility or will he continue to express regret over the incident without offering that apology?

At least for the time being, the White House and the State Department have not budged from their original position. A State Department spokesman attempted to take responsibility for NATO’s infractions at a press briefing after the report’s release, all the while punting questions on apologizing.

Now that US/NATO forces are indeed held liable for at least part of the border incident, the administration should in fact reverse its previous stance, privately and publicly making it clear that anyone on the American side who was part of the problem will be dealt with accordingly.

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been on the phone for weeks with Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani and the Pakistani foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, trying to rebuild a tattered relationship. Kayani has reestablished contacts with NATO commander General John R. Allen, a good start to making sure that a deadly accident like the one that occurred on November 24 does not happen again. But neglecting to say “I’m sorry,” even as the Pentagon investigation details that NATO did in fact make mistakes, will give the Pakistanis a greater reason to doubt the United States as committed partners in the region.

The reality is that as long as the United States are engaged with tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan, Washington needs Pakistan’s help—whether or not Pakistan has been truly forthcoming in battling militancy on its own soil. Absent cordial relations between the two countries, NATO commanders can expect Islamabad to continue closing down supply routes that go into Afghanistan—forcing the coalition to either spent millions more airlifting supplies or putting them increasingly into the pockets of Central Asia’s autocratic regimes.

Pakistan may be a double faced partner right now but imagine how much worse NATO’s experience in Afghanistan would be without a measurable level of Pakistani complicity. Sometimes in war, a nation does not get to choose its allies. Pakistan is one such nation—a pain to deal with but necessary for a smooth NATO conclusion to the war across the border.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany during an Afghan security conference in Bonn, December 5 (AFP)

December 5, 2011 may have been just an ordinary day for most of the world but for Hamid Karzai and his government in Kabul, it represented a day of international solidarity for his country’s fate. 

After quick successes by the United States and heir coalition allies against Al Qaeda and Taliban bases, the war in Afghanistan has grinded on for a decade. Afghans of all ethnicities and tribes have suffered immeasurably at the hands of all sides involved in the conflict. Suicide bombings, unheard of in Afghanistan prior to 2001, are now a facet of everyday life. 

The insurgents have even targeted Kabul, a city that was once relatively insulated from violence in the rest of Afghanistan, with ever more ferocity. The latest suicide attack in the capital striking at the heart of Shī’ah commemorations killed close to sixty innocent people.

It’s not all bad however. Death and destruction may have defined the war effort so far but the Afghan Government, the Afghan people and the world are clearly hoping that the future brings more hope. In Bonn, Germany, representatives of a hundred countries and organizations converged to talk about where Afghanistan is headed and what the international community can do to make the lives of Afghans a little less violent and a little more prosperous.

President Hamid Karzai was the keynote speaker during the conference and praised Europe, the United States and the rest of his partners for the immense sacrifices that they have made for the benefit of the Afghan people. For American delegates sitting in on the meeting, Karzai’s remarks, which tend to change as fast as events on the battlefield, were noteworthy in their sincerity and appreciation.

Together, we have spent blood and treasure in fighting terrorism. Your continued solidarity, your commitment and support will be crucial so that we can consolidate our gains and continue to address the challenges that remain.

Challenges there are. Economic growth in Afghanistan has been at a standstill in the countryside where most Afghans live due to the dangerous security situation on the ground.

The government of Hamid Karzai is so reliant on foreign aid that his authority would quickly collapse if the billions of dollars in international spending were to be cut even marginally. As of 2010, the United States alone had donated at least $52 billion to the Afghan Government for a variety of tasks, most related to security but others related to reconstruction programs and reconciliation activities.

Yet even that amount has not solved Afghanistan’s problems. The financial constraints on Karzai are so severe that he asked global contributors for an additional $15 billion for 2015 at the Bonn Conference—a pledge that Washington and its allies have nominally supported if the Afghans continue to progress on the political reform front.

Where does this conference leave the United States and their NATO partners at the moment? Right now, the military mission in Afghanistan continues on its present course. NATO soldiers, with embedded Afghan units, are scheduled to take the fight to the enemy in the caverns of eastern Afghanistan, the home base of the Haqqani network and an area that will be extremely difficult to pacify without political dedication from NATO countries and an aggressive counterterrorism approach that will result in at least some casualties.

Unfortunately, even with these force enablers in mind, it stretches credulity to expect these operations to do anything but temporarily dent the insurgency—especially without cooperation from Pakistan, who did not even participate in the Bonn Conference. 

The training of Afghan security personnel will undoubtedly accelerate as Afghanistan’s own army only has a short three years to get its act together before NATO draws down and leaves the nation’s security where it belongs—in the hands of the Afghan people.

Regrettably, the geopolitical aspect of the equation—which must include regional acceptance of Afghanistan as a sovereign and independent state, without interference from its neighbors—and reintegration with the Taliban is a dim prospect. In the end, what the Afghan people do not need is more war, but a political settlement that is acceptable to all of the major players in the country.